


A Night in Ljubljana

by ElDiablito_SF



Series: Vaguely Victorian Verse [1]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Victorian, M/M, No one eats any children, treat!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 13:33:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17142683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElDiablito_SF/pseuds/ElDiablito_SF
Summary: Flint is a magician hired to protect the city of Ljubljana on Krampusnacht.  But what really lurks in the shadows will take him by surprise.  Hint:  it's Silver.





	A Night in Ljubljana

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nightmoth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightmoth/gifts), [mapped](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mapped/gifts).



> Thank you, Mel, for being a fabulous moderator and an all around A+ friend! Please accept this humble treat which I wish was longer but a bitch is tired. <3
> 
> And Nemesis: your prompt actually inspired this and I miss you a lot! <3

As dusk settles over streets of Ljubljana, gas lamps appearing one by one like fireflies while Flint watches from the wall of Castle Hill upon which sits Ljubljanski grad, a small flurry of bats is spooked from the belfries and takes to flight. It’s going to be a quiet night, Flint thinks, despite the assignment that brought him to Carniola in the first place. The winter air is crisp inside his nostrils. It has not snowed yet in the city, yet the mountain caps have extended their frosty capes further down their slopes. The sounds of the puppeteers performing along the Butchers’ Bridge float up in birdsong as someone cranks up what the Russians call the sharmanka. If Flint had not been a magician by trade, Ljubljana would have made him one out of habit.

He walks the perimeter of the castle wall, his wand out, just in case he’s wrong about it being a quiet night. The ancient Roman city of Emona once stood here, he thinks as he passes by a timeless well that still buzzes with mystical energy. Were it not for his gifts of sorcery, he too may have passed into oblivion many times now. If he yet lives, it certainly isn’t for lack of trying on the part of many who have had the misfortune to cross Flint’s path.

Something stirs in the darkness. Too large to be a bat, too graceful to be a bear. A half-goat, perhaps? Flint raises his wand. _Krampusnacht_ be damned! He has faced down armies of demons in the past, and Krampus was ever interested in eating small children in the first place.

“Show yourself!” Flint shouts into the shadows.

“Do not fire,” says an all-too-familiar voice. And rather than lower his wand, Flint holds it more firmly before his face. “I’m not here to harm you,” the voice continues and a man steps out of the shadows, both hands raised to the level of his side-sitting top hat. From beneath the rim of the hat come cascades of wild, dark curls. “Hello, Captain.”

“Silver,” Flint growls.

It has been at least ten years since… well, their last parting. Bile burns the lining of his stomach like poison. Flint’s mastery of his art comes from years of deliberate practice. Silver is more what one might call a natural. In Flint’s profession, the nicest thing he might call Silver is a rival.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Flint barks.

“I imagine the same thing you’re doing here,” the man shrugs and begins to lower his hands. But at one flick of Flint’s wrist and a guttural warning, the hands shoot back up again. Silver stops moving and waits. “The locals have hired me to keep Krampus away from their darling children this night.”

“Krampus isn’t real,” Flint spits.

“The masses are ignorant. Yet that never stopped you from taking their money,” Silver points out with a grin that suddenly lights up the night like a sprinkle of stars. “Well, _someone_ has been stealing the naughty children of Ljubljana,” Silver says. It is true. Flint saw it in the papers the year prior. Half a dozen children gone overnight, never to be seen again.

“It’s probably some local with macabre tastes,” Flint says, wand still pointed at Silver’s face. “This place would make anyone act out fairy tales. Did you also find that skeleton behind the wall over the main gate? I may not believe in Krampus, but people are evil enough without the help of the actual Devil.”

“That isn’t a very Christian philosophy you profess, James,” Silver laughs. The use of his name, so familiar, so easy on that lying tongue for a moment makes Flint see red.

“You’re _Jewish_ , Silver,” Flint reminds him.

“By blood only, I assure you.” Silver’s hand is now pressed to his heart. It’s only a moment before his own wand is out of his breast pocket and pointed in Flint’s direction. “And if you’re going to keep insisting on referring to my associate Israel Hands as the Golem, I shall have to take offense on his behalf.”

“You’re an asshole, Silver,” Flint says and lowers his wand.

“I’m an asshole with a flask full of Borovničevec and it’s getting pretty nippy, Captain.”

“You sharing?”

“You are absolutely positive Krampus isn’t real?”

Before long, they’re both perched atop the wall. Below them, the dark ribbon of the Ljubljanica River winds through the moonlit streets. The dragons of the Jubilee Bridge are still, and lifeless as the skeletal remains interred inside the castle walls. Silver takes a long swallow and passes the flask to Flint and the heady mixture of alcohol and blueberry stings his throat and coats his gut with warmth.

“You still with that Caribbean siren or has she left you already?” Flint asks.

“Madi prefers the term ‘nymph’. Siren has such a negative connotation.”

“Right,” Flint takes another swig of the Borovničevec. “Because nymphs have never hurt anyone in their existence.”

He had liked Madi. In fact, sometimes Flint thinks he had liked her a whole lot more than he ever liked Silver. But, like many of his thoughts, this one is a lie.

“Not answering the question,” he finally realizes as Silver’s gloved fingers brush past his and the flask is reclaimed. A tiny screech overhead is the call of another bat. The sky has darkened enough that their little bellies and flung-open wings appear as pale silhouettes against the black sky.

“I had to follow the work,” Silver shrugs. “Madi can handle things back home. Europe is always in some kind of demonic turmoil.” He drinks, his eyes sparkle like diamonds in the darkness. It has been a decade and those eyes have not changed, have not dimmed. _Sorcery_ , Flint reminds himself. “What about you?” Silver suddenly asks. “Still shacking up with your dark warlock?”

“Thomas isn’t a dark warlock,” Flint snarls.

“Coulda fooled me,” Silver shakes his curls.

“It’s fucking slander is what that was. Thomas could give a toss about the forces of _darkness_.” Ingrates, really, the lot of them, Flint thinks. People will always hate that which they do not understand.

“So he _doesn’t_ have a pet hellhound contrary to the rumors?” Silver presses.

“What do you care? You have one too - Israel Hands.”

“Offended.”

A cry reaches them from below, startling them from their seats atop the wall. A juvenile, shrill shrieking pierces the night.

“Nope,” Silver says before Flint can even draw his wand. “ _That_ , my old friend, is the sound of children having fun. Not that either you or I would know anything about such things…” he adds in a quieter voice.

“Silver,” Flint groans with anguish. They stand at the top of the wall, looking out upon the magical city below. _Krampusnacht_ shrouds them in the veil of the forbidden. “Is there really nothing else that you’d like to say to me?” he finally asks.

They were partners once. They had been more. What they could have been, only the gods can truly know. Because Thomas had been brought back from the dead, and it was Silver who had performed the spell to rend him from the veil, upsetting the natural order, and toppling Flint from the path that he had been so firmly set upon at the time. Even if that path led only to ruin.

“Do you still hate me as you once did?” Silver asks.

The music from the marionette theater soars up like a lark and dissipates above their heads in the cold December air. Soon it will be Solstice, the darkest night, the longest night. Flint loves it when the nights are longer than the days. He’s always been more comfortable in the shadows. Flint reaches out and takes Silver’s hand into his.

“I wanted to,” he admits. “But you’ve always been a hard man not to like.”

“Do you think we might also see St. Nicholas tonight?” Silver asks as his head lands squarely on top of Flint’s shoulder. His hat is even more askew if at all possible, and his curls spill down in unruly rivulets over the fur collar of Flint’s lapel.

“I wouldn’t hope to get anything but coal if I were you,” Flint replies with a smile, as his thumb rubs across Silver’s, the heat of their hands joining palpable even through the leather gloves.

Light by light, Ljubljana goes to sleep below the walls of Castle Hill. Tomorrow, Flint knows, will be another day. But tonight, they stick to the shadows.


End file.
